MADONNAS & ANGELS
As a practicing atheist (do atheists "practice"?), I never quite intended to take up anything approaching a religious subject matter. But coming upon a gorgeously attenuated Renaissance painting of a Madonna and Child (I unfortunately lost the source, though I've searched high and low through art history books) and seeing wonderful folk treatments of the theme in Mexico, I saw a potential in the placement of this traditional, cliche-ridden subject within some kind of conflicting contemporary setting. Ribbony forms borrowed from late Willem de Kooning paintings served as backdrop in a number of images, sometimes implying an abstract, radiating celestial light, as in Our Lady of the Perpetual de Kooning Shapes (see below). In this triptych I placed a painterly version of a Madonna and Child I found on a folk art ceramic plate within an undulating sea of de Kooning shapes that were derived from a single painting presented as a mirror images. The symmetry I thought perpetuated the ancient religious idea of unassailable wholeness, an idea that I took ironically.
On occasion I used Renaissance Madonnas whole and covered them with swirling abstract patterns or deformed their bodies through digital manipulation of one kind or another. Soon enough (too soon for many), the hackneyed notion of the Madonna/Whore notion seeped into my brain, and I began a series of drawings from a live model who graciously consented to feign the breast feeding of an imaginary Holy Child. Halos, inexplicable light shafts, flowing gowns and other sacred accoutrements conflicted with these Madonnas' obvious carnal proclivities, their tendency to let fly their robes in utter disregard of their reputed holy stature.
The angels that soon followed got similar disrespectful treatment. Often derived from Mexican folk art, they arrived in disjointed and distorted forms, the result of the original artists' disinterest in correct proportions and anatomy. I added to their morphological plight with further deformations and by assaulting them with various, often sharped-edged abstract shapes. Some, consequently, look quite glum and distressed.
Many of these works are a continuation of my project to place more or less inappropriate ready-made images within broad abstract configurations.
On occasion I used Renaissance Madonnas whole and covered them with swirling abstract patterns or deformed their bodies through digital manipulation of one kind or another. Soon enough (too soon for many), the hackneyed notion of the Madonna/Whore notion seeped into my brain, and I began a series of drawings from a live model who graciously consented to feign the breast feeding of an imaginary Holy Child. Halos, inexplicable light shafts, flowing gowns and other sacred accoutrements conflicted with these Madonnas' obvious carnal proclivities, their tendency to let fly their robes in utter disregard of their reputed holy stature.
The angels that soon followed got similar disrespectful treatment. Often derived from Mexican folk art, they arrived in disjointed and distorted forms, the result of the original artists' disinterest in correct proportions and anatomy. I added to their morphological plight with further deformations and by assaulting them with various, often sharped-edged abstract shapes. Some, consequently, look quite glum and distressed.
Many of these works are a continuation of my project to place more or less inappropriate ready-made images within broad abstract configurations.
Above: Pink Madonna, archival pigment print, 2011.
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Starting upper left above, moving clockwise: Gray Madonna, pencil and graphite, 2010; Melanie as Nursing Madonna, pencil, 2010; Nude Melanie as Relaxing Madonna, pencil, 2010; Melanie with Parted legs posing as Nursing Madonna, pencil, 2010; Our Lady of the Perpetual de Kooning Shapes, acrylic on three canvases, 2008 (This, the largest of the Madonna pieces, measures 110 inches wide); and directly above: Pepsi Madonna, archival pigment print, 2009. (A revised, more intensely colored version of this print appeared as part of the RE-MIXico series, 2014.)
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Left: Springtime Madonna, acrylic on canvas, 2008. This large, heavily painted canvas derives its frenetic background from early 20th century biomorphic abstraction. |
Above: Anguished Madonna, pencil and acrylic, 2010
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Left: Awkward Angel, acrylic on canvas, 2007. I made de Kooning's ribbons into a rickety enclosure from which the stiff angel triumphantly emerges. |
Little Angel with de Kooning Shapes, archival pigment print with acrylic, 2008
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Madonna with de Kooning Shapes 2, archival digital print collage and acrylic, 2019